Do you want to move your website to a new domain but are afraid you won’t be able to maintain your hard-earned Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) rankings? It might be difficult to switch domains, particularly if you want to keep your SEO work intact.

Thankfully, moving a WordPress website to a different domain doesn’t have to be a terrible experience. In this post, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step process with best practices to make sure the transfer of a WordPress website to a new domain goes smoothly.

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Things that you need to do before to moving a WordPress website to a new domain –

You must confirm a few things before moving a WordPress website to a new domain. This will make the migration of your WordPress website safe and problem-free. Even if you manage to fall into problems, maintaining backup will help you get out of them eventually.

The process of moving to a new domain will momentarily impact your search engine rankings since Google and other search engines will need to make adjustments.

Yes, this will also have a short-term impact on the volume of searches you do. Remember that this is typical and that every website that moves to a new domain experience it.

However, following this approach may significantly reduce the impact of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). We’ll walk you through the process of properly setting up 301 redirections, search engine optimization, and WordPress site migration.

Things to perform before transferring a WordPress website to a new domain-

It can be scary to switch to a new domain name, and things can go wrong. Prior to beginning, there are a few things you need to take care of to ensure the procedure runs as smoothly as possible. If all you want to do is modify your domain name, follow these steps:

  • Get a new domain name from your web server or a domain registrar. Either your current web hosting provider or the new one you’re switching to should include it.
  • Manually create a backup of your complete website. You could restore it in the event that something went wrong, like your website crashing.
  • Keep everyone off your website except for yourself. This will ensure that no changes are made to the site, which could lead to mistakes throughout the migration. This is readily accomplished using a maintenance plugin. Make sure to temporarily deny others admin rights so that only users with such permissions can access the entire site.

You also need to complete the following if you’re moving to a new server or web hosting provider and changing your domain name:

  • Keep your destination and current servers’ FTP/SFTP credentials close to hand. You may locate them in your web hosting provider’s user dashboard.
  • Set up WordPress on the web server that you have chosen. When you join up with most web hosting providers, WordPress is installed automatically for you. You might have to set up the dedicated server yourself if you’re switching to one for your website.
  • Turn off any redirect, firewall, or caching plugins, as these could interfere with the migration process. You can reactivate them after your website launches on the new domain.
  • Verify that the source and destination WordPress installations have the same PHP version. If they’re not, a migration can encounter an HTTP 500 error.

Move WordPress site to new domain manually-

This article assumes that you are switching domains and then give the below steps for moving a WordPress website to a new domain.

  1. Download a backup of your website

 If you have a backup of all the files on your site, you may easily restore it in the event that something goes wrong. Test site’s WordPress files will be backed up via FTP. The File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, is a network protocol used to transfer files between computers over the Internet. It is essentially a set of rules that specify how a specific task should be done over the Internet. We will download the root folder of WordPress installation to our hard drive after establishing an FTP client connection to the server hosting our website. It will function as the necessary file’ backup.

 

  1. Look into the New Domain

Make a list of possible domain names for your new WordPress website and use a domain checker tool to see whether they are available.

If the domain you want is already taken, consider comparable options or contact the owner to work out a deal. To accomplish this, use the WHOIS tool to find the owner’s contact details.

Make sure the previously owned domain name has a spotless history, free of low-quality content and spammy backlinks that could hurt SEO. To find out if the domain has ever been penalized, use Ahref’s Backlink Checker Tool or enter the URL into Google Search Console.

Lastly, purchase the new domain by going to a recognized domain registrar. As an alternative, see if your site server provides the domain registration service.

Having a single hosting account for both name registration and hosting helps streamline the process. To assist save money, several web hosting providers may bundle hosting and domains into one package.

 

  1. Export WordPress’s database

If you intend to remain with the same web hosting provider, exporting your database is optional. Nevertheless, since it generates a backup of your database—which is always useful—we still advise doing it.

For this phase, we’ll be using the free application phpMyAdmin. Using a web-based user interface, website owners may administer their MySQL databases with phpMyAdmin. When you sign up, the majority of web hosting will automatically install phpMyAdmin in addition to WordPress. For every host, the procedures are basically the same. You will need to install phpMyAdmin on the server manually if your web hosting provider did not do so when you joined up. Check out the online instructions provided by your specific web server.

 

  1. Change the Current WordPress Website’s Address

When the outdated site address is updated, it is easier for users and search engines to find and index your material. There are several different methods for changing the previous domain to the new one.

The simplest and most popular option is to use the WordPress admin dashboard to update the domain. To update the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) to your new domain, click Settings -> General. Then, press the Save Changes button.

 

  1. Make a copy of the files and replace your domain name

To add the new address to your existing hosting account, enter it in the Add Domain or Change Domain Name option in the control panel.

As an alternative, choose Domains -> Addon Domains after logging into your cPanel account. Next, complete the form found under the Create an Addon Domain Name section for a New Domain Name.

After that, transfer your WordPress files to the new domain from the old one. To accomplish this, check that both domain directories show up in the File Manager on your web host.

To preserve a copy of a file on the old domain or to move all files to the new WordPress site, locate the public_html folder on the old domain and select Copy or Move. The data should then be copied or moved to the new domain’s folder.

 

  1. Reset all hardcoded and internal links

It is now time to update all of your hardcoded and internal links on your WordPress site, as you have updated the address and URL to the new domain. Although hard-coding URLs is generally not advised, you have probably done so at some point—we all do it. This covers links to and from your website’s JavaScript and CSS files, as well as links within your own content and assets. Here are two ways that you can use to update your links.

 

  1. Add 301 Redirects

It’s now time to provide 301 redirects. This is unquestionably one of the most crucial aspects of changing a domain name. By doing this, you can be confident that all traffic from your old domain will be forwarded to your new domain immediately. Here are a few explanations of the significance of 301 redirects:

  • People will eventually backlink to your content and website. Google uses backlinks as a ranking indication. As a result, you don’t want to lose any of your “link juice.” To put it another way, links have authority, and if you were to abruptly lose them, your site’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) might suffer greatly and take a long time to recover. Numerous SEOs and case studies state that 301 redirects pass 90–99% of the link juice.
  • Redirects are crucial for usability in addition to SEO when it comes to backlinks. The last thing you want is for a hyperlink to take users away from your website. It’s never good to have broken links.
  • Another kind of ranking component is social signals, though opinions on this matter may differ. In any case, it’s never nice when links to your website from Twitter or Pinterest stop working out of the blue.

Without a doubt, your website will suffer if you don’t install redirects.

 

  1. Upgrade Bing and Google

It’s time to update your web properties using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools now that you have your old domain routing requests to your new domain. Create them, check them, and then repeat the process for your newdomain.com if you still need to do so for your olddomain.com. Proceed with the next steps. Between Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console, you ought to have four properties in total.

 

  1. Submit in Modified Sitemap Files

 It is advised that you upload your updated sitemap file now that you have new verified websites and have informed them of your domain change. All you really need for a sitemap is a list of URLs that you wish to be accessible to the public. Although not necessary, doing so will probably hasten the process of crawling and re-indexing.

As you can see, altering your WordPress domain involves a lot of work. However, you can make sure that you maintain the benefits of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and do no harm to your organization with a little forethought and the appropriate assistance. Recall that a slight decline is normal and should be anticipated. This also holds true for redesigning websites. If you are not cautious enough, you may lose a significant amount of your SEO traffic. However, as long as you keep moving forward, everything should work fine. After all, switching to a new domain ought to be a joyful occasion!

 

Conclusion-

Businesses that wish to rebrand or have a simpler domain may occasionally need to change their WordPress domain. However, switching to a new domain without taking the right actions can result in lower online traffic and search engine results.

The nine steps necessary to transfer a full website to a new domain have been completed. Each step includes useful advice to ensure the migration procedure doesn’t harm your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Only when done correctly may moving a WordPress website to a new domain aid in its expansion. If not, you’ll have a lot of technical problems that will hurt your SEO efforts and take a lot of time to resolve.

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